What was NAVANTIA’s focus, in terms of technologies and platforms, at Euronaval?
The main objective of Navantia at any defence exhibition is always to meet most of our potential clients, suppliers and partners in the same place within a very short span of time. At Euronaval this time we showed our star products like the F-100 frigates; the 2Juan Carlos I Landing Helicopter Dock; the S-80 submarine; the Norwegian F-310 frigate; the ‘Cantabria’ Auxiliary Oiler Replenishment and our AVANTE family of OPVs.

What percentage of NAVANTIA’s business is focused on the domestic market and how much is on exports?
At the time that NAVANTIA came into existence almost 300 years ago, the only objective was to serve Spanish Navy’s interests as a single provider — single customer structure. In the 1970s and ’80s — we were known as BAZAN at that time — we started to look for export opportunities that contributed small percentages to our order book. In the new century, NAVANTIA has focussed on a balanced order book with a 50/50 contribution from both domestic and export markets. During these difficult times of global economic recession, which has affected Spain quite badly, our national defence budget for new programmes has been drastically cut. Therefore, we hope to increase the percentage coming from export programmes in order to compensate for the reduction in the domestic contribution of the order book.

What are the programmes of interest for NAVANTIA in India? And at what stage are these?
As you perfectly know, NAVANTIA forms part of the Scorpene India Consortium with DCNS of France. It is providing design and transfer of technology to Mazagon Dock Limited to build six Scorpene submarines for the Indian Navy under Project-75. The project is progressing well. We are eagerly waiting to see the NAVANTIA and DCNS design inducted into the Indian Navy’s (IN) service.
Also, NAVANTIA is following two big projects: the second line of submarines with Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) named Project P-75I and the IN’s Landing Platform Dock (LPD) Project.

The P-75I is a very attractive programme for us. It involves the design and construction of six AIP submarines under a quite interesting industrial arrangement with a compromise between ‘Buy’ and ‘Make India’. First two submarines are meant to be built at the designer’s facilities abroad and the remaining four submarines will be built between Mazagon Dock Ltd. and Hindustan Shipyard Ltd. The P-75I has been on the table for quite some time already and NAVANTIA has replied to IN’s Request for Information (RFI). We are now waiting for the Request for Proposal (RFP) to be issued before the end of this fiscal year. We believe that NAVANTIA’s S-80 submarine, which is undergoing the final stages of construction for the Spanish Navy, could be a good reference for P-75I.

The IN’s LPD programme is expected to increase its amphibious capabilities by delivering four LPD ships that must be built in India. An RFI was issued last year followed by a Capability Definition Document (CDD). NAVANTIA responded in cooperation with two Indian shipyards and immediately after that a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between Larsen & Toubro and NAVANTIA for cooperation under the LPD programme. An RFP was expected in October but it has been postponed slightly, we believe that sometime around the end of 2012, the RFP could be possibly issued.